Reviews for Ultra ChillTec Thermo Electric CPU Cooler

I am completely satisfied...

Strengths: Great cooling External display is great for displaying the cpu temperature Greatly reduced my cpu temp Good instructions for installation.

Weakness: The unit is very large. I had to remove my door fan for it to fit. A bit more maintenance than I wanted to do to install.

I am really satisfied with this cooler. With my stock fan, on my AMD Phenom 9850BE @ 2.5GHz stock, I was reaching CPU temps of 50c idle and ~59-60c under full load. After installing this cooler, I'm idling @ 26c and 37c under full load overclocked @ 3.0GHz. This is a huge drop in temp. I have a very well ventilated case and so much hot air used to come out of every single opening in my case, it was like having a space heater at my desk. Now, the only heat seems to flow right out of the back of my case through the rear fan and this cooler just blows the air right out of the back of my case from its fan through that fan. It's a really good investment for the price and saved me from paying more and installing an expensive water-cooling system. I would highly recommend this to anyone who is looking to do so moderate overclocks or anyone who is just looking to lower the temps and extend the life of their components.

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Quad-Core Capable (... but Barely)

Strengths: Much easier to install than water, works well under less than perfect ambient temperatures, quad-core capable.

Weakness: No miracles here: a QX6700 quad-core seems to push it to the limit, no room for serious overclocking.

Let's just get to the temps, that's what we are here for, right? :) *** CPU: quad-core Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700, at stock 2.66Ghz, rated 130W. CPU fan: [high] 2,500RPM. Case, fully closed: Antec 900 (front: [high] 2 x 120mm, side: [medium] 1 x 120mm, back: [medium] 1 x 120mm, top: [low] 1 x 200mm). Compound: Arctic Silver 5 (paste) or Zalman ZM-STG1 (lacquer) with identical results. Ambient: a typical NYC summer day, ~27C, no A/C. Worst-case results reported by CoreTemp: completely idle (CPU drops down to 1.6Ghz): core #0: 37C, core #1: 34C, core #2: 36C, core #3: 33C. The ~5C difference across the first and the last core has been there before with other coolers, I need to lap the heck out of my CPU sometime. Stress test with OCCT, continuously murdering all cores at ~97% utilization for 30 to 60 minutes, worst-case: core #0: 68C, core #1: 63C, core #2: 67C, core #3: 63C. Thus, ChillTec Ultra is indeed capable of handling a QX6700 at any load under less than ideal ambient conditions. *** Moving on to overclocking... Worst-case results for 2.93Ghz (10% overclock), stress tested with OCCT: core #0: 70C, core #1: 65C, core #2: 68C, core #3: 65C. The system remained perfectly stable, but as QX6700's maximum thermal design specification is ~65C, this test should be considered a failure (who cares that a QX6700 actually fails all the way up at 95C, that's not a sensible way to do it). Cooling ambient well below 20C with A/C, opening up the case, stress tested with OCCT, yielded a bit better worst-case results: core #0: 63C, core #1: 58C, core #2: 61C, core #3: 59C. A success, but surprisingly small difference for a ~10C drop in ambient, which suggests to me that the problem here is probably hitting the limit of Ultra's overall heat exchange capabilities, rather than PC case airflow or HSF seating. *** To summarize: ChillTec Ultra will indeed run your QX6700 safely at stock speeds without having to worry about providing perfect ambient conditions. However, if you want any quad-core overclocking, be ready to either run your A/C full time and open-up your case, or find another cooling solution. What I would like to see in the future is someone taking a Thermalright Ultra120 Extreme and slapping a ~75W TEC on it :).

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Ultra ChillTec Thermal Electric CPU Cooler ULT33186

TestSeek.com has collected 18 expert reviews for Ultra ChillTec Thermal Electric CPU Cooler ULT33186 and the average expert rating is 80 of 100. The average score reflects the expert community’s view on this product. Click below and use TestSeek.com to find all ratings, product awards and conclusions.

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